Saturday, September 1, 2007

A COUPLE CASES TO PASS THE TIME

Lost beneath two lengthy trials and a high profile sentencing over the past couple weeks, there were a few cases that were dealt with during the two recently completed trial lists of Judge Howard F. Riley, Jr. and Judge Phyllis Strietel and a couple of interesting VOP hearings in front of Judge James P. MacElree II. Tonight, I present a couple cases from Judge Strietel's court..

Peter Arrington Hyatt, 25, of Chadds Ford pled guilty to two separate DUI charges that he picked up within a month of each other. On February 17, Sgt. William Camlin spotted Hyatt driving slowly on the shoulder on Route 202 near the South Matlack Street light. Hyatt told Sgt. Camlin that he had been drinking early in the evening in West Chester; his BAC in that incident came back .22 (CP-15-CR-0001430-2007).

On March 23, Ofc. Stuart Smith responded to a property damage accident at Market and Walnut Streets where Hyatt backed his vehicle in to a parked car; his BAC in that accident was .20 (CP-15-CR-0002798-2007).

Sentencing in both cases were deferred pending approval into the Intermediate Punishment Program...

Amanda Brown, 22, of Newark, Del., pled guilty to charges of Retail Theft and Possession of a Controlled Substance following a shoplifting incident in West Goshen. On March 8, Ofc. Daniel Boyle responded to K-Mart for a report of shoplifters in custody. Brown acted as a lookout for her two co-defendants, Gerald Steele, 29, of Wilmington, Del., and Christopher Shweda, 29, of New Castle, Del. Ofc. Boyle recovered 14 boxes of Crest white strips and 15 boxes of Prilosec over-the-counter medication. Further search incident to arrest revealed a small bag of heroin from Brown.

On the retail theft charge, Brown was sentenced to 32 days to 23 months at Chester County Prison, find $50, ordered to perform 40 hours community service, and ordered not to have any contact with Steele, Shweda, or the West Goshen K-Mart. On the drug possesion charges, Brown was sentenced to 1 year probation consective with her parole period, which would be non-reporting if she complies with her parole conditions (CP-15-CR-0001177-2007).

Shweda was sentenced last month to time served (138 days) to 23 months at Chester County Prison and three years consecutive probation (CP-15-CR-0001172-2007).

Steele was recently sentenced to 5 months (time served) to 23 months at CCP plus 2 years consecutive probation for his role in this particular incident (CP-15-CR-0001166-2007); Steele also pled guilty to a separate Retail Theft charge stemming from a February 25 incident in which he and three others stole 59 boxes of Prilosec valued at $1,432.41 from the same K-Mart. Steele was arrested two days later after a traffic stop in Marple Township, Delaware County, where most of the items were found in his car. On that case, Steele was sentenced to 2-to-23 months in prison, to be served consecutive to the first sentence, plus two years probation consecutive to the second prison term (CP-15-CR-0001168-2007).

I do have a few more case notes, but they're at home and I don't have them in front of me. We'll be back in the swing of things by Tuesday, as Criminal Terms begin in front of Judge Gavin, Judge Sarcione (Rotation I), and Judge Mahon. Plus, we'll try to take a peak into an on-call District Court session on Labor Day (two previous attempts to observe same - one a few weeks ago on a Saturday night in Downingtown and this past Wednesday in Judge Knapp's court - proved slow, but I will try to make something out of them), which incidentially will be in Judge Bruno's court (Judge Koon in Valley District Court is on-call this weekend)...

Also starting with Tuesday's respective Criminal Lists, I will try to post my recaps courtroom by courtroom, as I think I've finally perfected a new format where I will keep track of each courtroom in separate notebooks instead of the single notebook format so I can keep my courtroom straight...

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